


True Blue

by maybeillride



Category: Free!
Genre: Bars and Pubs, M/M, Mild Peril, Shameless use of RH Mook imagery, Sydney - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-14 14:35:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9186527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maybeillride/pseuds/maybeillride
Summary: Corporal Matsuoka is a fearsome (and fearless) soldier. Until, that is, a ghost ship sails into Sydney Port...





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Phosphorite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phosphorite/gifts).



> Title stolen I MEAN borrowed from a famous Australian drinking song ;)

**_Sydney Cove, 1788_ **

“Enter!”

Finally free from the stifling hall outside Captain Mikoshiba’s office, Rin marched by the impassive soldier standing guard and let himself in. It was even hotter inside, if that was possible, the open windows like a woodstove with the door left ajar. Mikoshiba had apparently abandoned uniform policy, with his coat on the back of his chair and his sleeves rolled up, and still he mopped his forehead with a cloth.

Rin stood straight at attention before his desk. “Captain Mikoshiba, sir, reporting for assignment.”

“Corporal. At ease. Please.” He gestured to one of the chairs before his desk and Rin was surprised. _What would the captain want us to discuss like old friends having a chat?_

Rin took his seat expectantly, but Mikoshiba seemed in no hurry to begin, drumming his fingers and gazing at a report on his desk. As his expression darkened Rin’s need to know only grew.

“Matsuoka, a terrible thing has happened to the _Observer._ As you know, she was due into port today with almost a hundred prisoners aboard.”

He nodded. “Of course, sir. We’ve been scrambling to prepare for them, if I can be completely honest.”

Mikoshiba lifted his eyes from the paper on his desk to fix Rin’s with unsettling intensity. “I will insist on honesty from you, as I am about to share a story that may sound like fiction but is God’s own truth.” He tapped the document, and for the first time Rin noticed how… sloppily it was written, the words almost illegible, the lines interrupted with splotches of ink.

“The _Observer_ has just arrived… Though, God only knows how that could be, with just one living soul left aboard.”

The captain fell silent then, watching Rin closely, and all he could do was blink back in confusion. Down below in the courtyard, a battalion jogged by, nothing out of the ordinary in their pace. Finally Rin couldn’t stand it any longer, his voice bursting out.

“Sir. Was it – an illness? Are we under quarantine?”

“We do not know what happened, for the prisoner who survived is not conscious to say,” Mikoshiba said in a hushed tone, deadly grave, leaning forward as if to get as close as possible. “The _Observer_ came into view and would not respond to any attempt by the watch to hail her. They could see no crew on deck. And when they scuttled a dinghy to row out and investigate…” Mikoshiba paused and Rin waited with him, breathless.

“They found a floating graveyard. Prisoners, marines, crew… all were scattered throughout the ship, pale, cold, dead. No signs of what this new plague might be.”

This time, Rin almost couldn’t bring himself to ask. “Well what of this prisoner?”

Mikoshiba reached to his desk for a trifolded parchment. “This prisoner is your new charge. Effective immediately, I am reassigning you to the infirmary. You will keep him under constant watch and interrogate him when he regains consciousness. You will make report to me of all you hear.” He held a finger aloft. “ _Most_ important: you will not speak of him or of what you have heard this morning to anyone. We have had enough challenges getting started in this godforsaken wilderness, we do not need a panic on our hands.”

Head spinning, Rin took the parchment from his commanding officer and stood, saluting before he turned to go.

*

Rin marched immediately to the infirmary and was taken aback at what he found.

A man lay in the cast iron bed as lifeless as a doll, one that had been forgotten by its owner and left out in the rain. Rin had never seen a living human so _pale._ His hands were white against the shackles that secured him to the headboard, his neck was white against his rough bed gown, and most of all, his cheeks and brow were deathly white against the black of his long, unruly hair, the contrast almost shocking. Rin stood at attention in the door, his body in correct military formation, while he allowed himself to plainly gawk. The sunken, closed eyes, the drawn mouth, the weird stillness; he would never disobey his superior’s orders, but at the same time he suddenly realized he was on a fool’s errand.

Mikoshiba had assigned him to guard a dead man.

He moved slowly to the prisoner’s side and gazed down, watching for a flickering eyelid, a wrinkle in his brow. There was nothing. He shifted his gaze to the man’s narrow chest, counting out the seconds, and saw no rise or fall there, either. That was that, then. The mystery illness had left no one who could warn them what dangers to watch out for. All they could do now was burn what was left, quarantine the poor bastards on watch who had rowed out and boarded the cursed ship, and hope for the best.

 _Guess I’m due for a stay in quarantine too,_ Rin thought, and dipped his head down to listen at the man’s chest. May as well do a thorough job confirming his death, now that he was already exposed.

But as he did so, two completely illogical things happened, one after the other:

Instead of the solid nothingness of a dead chest, Rin _felt_ rather than heard a strange vibration spread through his cheek, down his jaw, up his head. The closest comparison was the pins and needles shooting through an arm or leg after being dead asleep.

Then the man woke up.

Blue, _blue_ eyes flicked open, finding Rin immediately as he jerked up and away in surprise. The bluest eyes Rin had ever seen, the kind of blue an artist would choose for a portrait but no blue that could exist in nature.

“You’re alive!” Rin blurted, without thinking.

The man tilted his head as if he had to think about it before answering.

“No, I’m not,” he finally said, in a voice dry and dusty as an old attic. Those eyes never wavered from Rin’s, and despite the fact that he was talking nonsense, Rin believed him. The dark shadows under them, the lines drawn deep around his mouth, the way he clutched his shackled hands into bony fists: it was clear that the man was in pain, great pain, enough to wish he were dead.

Rin moved quickly to the pitcher on a side table, and returned with a cup of water. “Drink this,” he commanded, pressing it to the man’s chapped lips, and the prisoner squinted at him yet allowed Rin to tip the water down.

“Better?” he asked when the cup was empty.

“Mmm.” He licked his wet lips. “I’m surprised you’ve managed to find fresh water here. That’s good.” Now he was smirking up. “Maybe there’s hope for you yet.”

Rin’s temper flared like flint on tinder. “Uh, I’ll have you know, we have all the fresh water we want. In _fact,”_ he added hotly as the man’s smile only grew, “ _I_ happened to be in charge of the scouting party after our first settlement failed. It wasn’t easy! And with our spring, we have enough not just for drinking, we can bathe, too. I’m even teaching some of the men to swim.”

Too late, he realized he’d run his mouth to a criminal, and even worse one he was supposed to interrogate. But the man just gazed over Rin’s shoulder with a faraway look, as if Rin were telling him a pleasant bedtime story. Rin gazed back, drinking in the man’s face now that he was distracted and even relaxed, and found himself unable to pull his eyes away.

… _he’s beautiful,_ Rin thought dumbly. _I don’t know that I’ve ever seen someone so beautiful._

“Can – can I get you something to eat? You must be so hungry,” he said, too loud, breaking the moment with something like relief. The prisoner shifted that gaze back to him and weakly shook his head. Rin grabbed a stool and sat beside the bed.

“We need to know what happened aboard ship,” Rin began, slowly, unsure of exactly how to move into such a horrific subject. “When the _Observer_ came into port today, you were the only survivor.”

The man just blinked at him silently, hanging from his shackles, so _calm._ Nothing about him said “surprise”… rather, he was waiting almost politely for Rin to continue, and against his better judgment Rin leaned forward.

“So what is this illness?? How does it begin? It’s like nothing we’ve ever seen!”

The man shook his shackles and they clinked hollowly, like an anchor chain going overboard. The _plea_ in his eyes, the almost pathetic request for a little care, had Rin reaching for the heavy ring of keys on his belt before he could think about it. With a clack, the cruel irons were off the man’s wrists and he struggled weakly up to sit against the headboard. His eyes shone at Rin.

“…the trip was so long,” the man said, almost angrily, like he was trying to convince Rin of something that Rin was still catching up on. “Don’t you remember it? Long enough to make you lose your mind.” He frowned, fiercely, and half of Rin wanted to back away, while the other half was fixed in place, hanging on his every word.

“I tried to just sleep, to think about nothing. Think about the water.” He rolled his head side to side in a weak negative. “Nothing worked.”

Rin’s better senses finally, _finally_ took control then, and he heard the distant clatter of the stool behind him as he lurched to his feet. He drew his blade and held it steadily at the man’s throat, even as a little voice inside asked him _do you really want to do this?_

“Tell me what you’re saying,” he demanded, looming over the man as he sat very still and small in the infirmary bed. “Tell me plain. What happened? Did you kill those people??”

The man made a little noise of irritation, a little huffing sound, like Rin was a boy with an unreasonable request. And he reached up to push the blade away from his throat. As if it was no threat. As if Rin wasn’t the champion swordsman of the entire battalion. As if he had no fear whatsoever.

The blade clattered dully on the wooden floor. Rin stood, transfixed.

As the man shifted forward. Threw back the rough woolen blanket.

As he settled his feet on the floor, then slowly, slowly rose from the bed, to stand before Rin. He was not a tall man, and he was not strong, his frame gaunt from malnutrition. But Rin did nothing to stop him as the man reached up, behind his neck, drawing his head down. He fixed his lips to Rin’s throat with the oddest tenderness.

His teeth were bright points of pain as they entered Rin’s neck. But even that faded away, soft clouds drifting over his vision and a firm hand at his back holding him steady, as Rin fought the battle to keep his eyes open. From far away, a man’s voice said fondly, “I think I have to keep you,” before he surrendered.

***

“…and so, you make me a vampire and you take me with you and we become the first serial killers in Australian history,” Rin wraps up, eyes shining, breathless and happy-drunk. Or tipsy, anyway; Rin’s one of those jerks with the unfair ability to put down half a dozen beers and still be not only _coherent_ but _literate._ That story, for instance. Sure it was right out of a sixth-grader’s fantasies but damned if Haru wasn’t reeled in, sitting there making his own beer(…s) disappear and hanging on Rin’s every… damn… word.

Not that he was about to let Rin know that, of course.

“I would never, _ever_ have turned you into a vampire! No way.”

“Not even if I asked nicely?” Rin waggles his eyebrows. “Imagine me and you in a life of crime. _Immortal._ Traveling the world together and making snarky comments the whole way. Woodstock, Haru!”

“Ugh, too dirty,” Haru says in disgust, but he can’t help a dopey smile, at all they could get up to.

“We could swim in every Olympics,” Rin breathes like he just figured out the point of his own story. Haru can only snort – wouldn’t that blow their immortal cover?

Rin tips the last of his beer back and is smiling when the pint glass comes back down. “Well, anyway, we are sitting on the site of the very first hospital in Sydney, built way back in 1790. Sorta wild, huh?”

“Mmm,” Haru agrees, his mind immediately calling up the rough wooden floor and plain iron bedframe at the infirmary, how damn hot it was in that room, how good the water tasted as it flowed down his dry throat... “You’re a history geek, you know that?”

“That’s nothing. Did you know, this bar –" he waves his hands around grandly at the sleek and classy establishment they’re drinking in, and that Haru’s very glad is in stumbling-distance of their room upstairs – “ _this_ bar is named after a radical social movement in Sydney?”

“Oh?” Haru offers, and he glances down casually, and Rin’s shoulder is _right there,_ and he’s wearing that soft black sweater Haru gave him for his birthday. And then he’s snuggling in, and sighing, and if it’s a sigh of happiness, so be it.

“Yup,” Rin is continuing somewhere above him, his warm and soft arm coming down to draw Haru closer. “The Push. They started in the late ‘40s but really got going in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Those hippies, man,” he laughs and Haru doesn’t really follow but huffs a little laugh too against Rin’s chest. “They attracted people from all walks of life to join. Bricklayers, poets, lawyers, you name it. What got ‘em all together was the idea that no one should rule your life. Total freedom of your own destiny.”

“Mmm,” Haru tries to say, because that _does_ sound like him, like him exactly. And Rin’s laughing softly above him and gently tugging them out of their booth, somehow getting them both up and standing and heading out the door and up the stairs without falling over. But then, Rin always was the more coordinated one.

Not that Haru would tell him that.

**Author's Note:**

> SO  
> I got the greatest prompt from the lovely Phosphorite, wanting Rin and Haru drinking and reminiscing in the Russell Hotel bar (the Push :)) ... & proceeded to turn it into a vampire story. EEEK. The thinking being, wouldn't Rin just be the type to go off on some elaborate fantasy at the bar? And wouldn't Haru be the type to grudgingly enjoy it? 
> 
> I must also give props to the crazy-talented [brainindacloudz](http://archiveofourown.org/users/brainindacloudz) for her vision of [Haru in that infirmary bed](http://maybeillride-changemylife.tumblr.com/post/155456480579/rin-marched-immediately-to-the-infirmary-and-was). Those eyes.....
> 
> Well I sure hope you enjoyed and I encourage anyone who hasn't to check out [the Russell's website.](http://www.therussell.com.au/) That's where I stole I MEAN borrowed the nonfiction stuff here. Happy 2017 to you all & thanks for reading!


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